The inquiry heard that Mr Rodney was wanted over an allegation of grievous bodily harm when he was accused of hitting and stabbing someone.

However, the officers involved in the stop did not know this, and therefore the possibility of arresting him before the suspected drugs robbery was not raised.

Instead they were aiming to intercept the robbers once the group had armed themselves.On the day of the shooting, it was decided that three unmarked police cars would form a box for the hard stop.

The surveillance teams did lock on to Mr Lovell, they locked on to men at a cafe. It became clear that the suspects were arming themselves, and the intelligence indicated that the men who had been picked up by the surveillance officers were on their way to carry out the offence.

An armed police officer shot a suspect six times within a second of pulling up beside the car he was in, an inquiry heard today.

Azelle Rodney, 24, was killed "instantly" when Met officers carried out a "hard stop" on a VW Golf in Edgware, north London, on April 30 2005.

Police thought the group in the car - Mr Rodney and two other men, Wesley Lovell and Frank Graham - were on their way to commit an armed robbery linked to drugs.

Ashley Underwood QC told the inquiry into Mr Rodney's death that the officer who shot him, known only as E7, was in the front passenger seat of an unmarked police car that stopped level with the driver's side back window on the Golf.